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The BBC has a report on Nestle's press release concerning its recent experiments in materials science. From the press release:
Using only natural ingredients, researchers have found a way to structure sugar differently. So even when much less is used in chocolate, your tongue perceives an almost identical sweetness to before.
The discovery will enable Nestlé to significantly decrease the total sugar in its confectionery products, while maintaining a natural taste.
"This truly groundbreaking research is inspired by nature and has the potential to reduce total sugar by up to 40% in our confectionery," said Stefan Catsicas, Nestlé Chief Technology Officer.
While details of the method are not yet available, the process apparently involves "hollowing out" the sugar crystals so they dissolve faster, thereby increasing perceived sweetness with less total sugar. Nestle is already touting this as a way of achieving some of its publicly announced goals of sugar reduction in its products. Apparently they plan to introduce the new sugar structure in Crunch, Butterfinger, and BabyRuth bars in 2018.
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However, is this actually a useful change for dietary control or to prevent obesity? New York Magazine is skeptical:
This all sounds amazing until you remember that reduced-calorie foods with artificial sweeteners — looking at you, diet soda — can make you eat more by messing with your brain's expectations of how much sustenance it's about to get. Diet soda is particularly bad because it contains zero calories but is still very sweet, though studies in mice suggest that reduced-calorie foods can also increase hunger.
Even if you don't feel hungrier after eating diet chocolate, you might think about the calories you saved and then eat them somewhere else. In playing mad scientist with sugar, snack companies are doing what they think they need to do as customers are trying to eat healthier, but just know that it might not save you any calories in the long run.
While the ultimate effects are speculative for the moment, this latter statement seems to follow the logic around previous studies on artificial sweeteners reported here (such as on sucralose and aspartame).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Appalbarry on Saturday December 03 2016, @01:22AM
"No Change in Flavor"
I'll believe it when I taste it. I can't recall any product over the years that replaced sugar that didn't turn out to change the taste experience.
Our culture is so inundated with artificial flavours, fillers, and ersatz substitutions for real ingredients that many people have lost all ability to appreciate that truly good food does taste and feel different from the slop that we're served.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2016, @01:25AM
On top of that all of these 'new' items still do not taste the same. For me almost have a fairly nasty aftertaste. I rather do without than that nasty taste.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2016, @02:18AM
Eh, it doesn't bother me. Once I got used to eating food from different cultures, I realized my preconceptions about what food should taste (and look) like were fairly arbitrary. I'm not a big fan of nutritionalism, but even if this does taste different from full-sugar chocolate that doesn't mean it will taste bad.
I look at it like a music remix. When I was a kid I hated remixes (and live concert albums) because the songs were different from what I had listened to a hundred times already on the radio. But somewhere along the way I figured out that variations on a theme were more interesting than hearing the same old thing I had already heard a hundred times before. Maybe I've just got a novelty-seeking personality, but nothing new ever came out of being the same.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Saturday December 03 2016, @02:32AM
As long as they keep it to changing their sugar shape, we're probably better off than with the artificial substitutes, as pointed out in TFS.
Faced with a can of $brand and a can of diet $brand, an old friend always asks people whether they prefer diabetes or neurotoxins. If I'm not gonna drink water, I'll take a liver hit, thanks!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2016, @04:13AM
> As long as they keep it to changing their sugar shape, we're probably better off than with the artificial substitutes
"Shape" at the molecular level can make a big difference. For example, chirality affects digestability.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SanityCheck on Saturday December 03 2016, @04:33AM
This has nothing to do with health. I will bet my right testicle that the new substance is cheaper than both real sugar and any fake substitute. They just don't give a fuck about anything but profits. I don't eat anything they make knowingly anyway (though sicne they own like 90% of the food chain it's likely I do eat something on occasion), and I am glad I have the financial ability to pick my food.